Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday.  He would have turned 66 but his life was cut short and I am learning there was nothing I could have done about it.  To put it lightly, acceptance sucks.  But, I get that it is a part of life.  My little girls loves this picture and she recognizes Grandpa in it, even if he is not with her anymore. I miss his smile.

In honor of his January birthday, (Which he hated and always wanted to celebrate in May) I am posting my talk from his funeral.  Anyone who never knew him, missed out.  But this talk helps you get to know him a bit more.

I miss you dad.  Happy Birthday.

Lessons I have learned From My Dad

A quote from the book The Martian Chronicles matches my emotions today: “It fills me with such feelings that I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

            When someone you love dies, a gate in your mind is broken and a flood of memories washes over you.  This is what happened just an hour or two after we left the hospital last Thursday.

Luckily I had the foresight to begin a list of everything I could remember about my dad.  

At first 90% of it was about food.  My dad passed on to me a few traits and one of them was an ever-present sweet tooth.  He and I love candy. Halloween and Easter were favorite holidays (probably due to the abundance of marshmallow peeps being sold), and we stashed candy like thieves all over the house.  (For example, a few days ago, my mom found several petrified and forgotten milky way mini’s stashed in my dad’s temple bag). I was shocked since I thought I knew all his hiding places. 

Though candy was not his only love. My dad bought a bushel of Golden Delicious apples every September. He would then dry them, filling the house with a warm fall scent.  He also had a special place in his heart for Thai food, Jewish delis, hot mustard, and like me, any type or form of marshmallow.

But setting aside the black licorice and pastrami sandwiches, my dad was a scientist at heart.  I think of my childhood, going to his lab, looking at slides under the microscope and learning how to properly use a pipette.  He lived in a white lab coat and seemed to be saving the world, one test at a time. When children are little, parents will often read fairy tales to their kids.  Instead my dad gave me a children’s version of all the great scientific discoveries, complete with pencil sketches of Alexander Fleming.  And once when I was in elementary school he brought home a little plastic bag with tiny microorganisms that would glow.  It was his version of a night light.

However, beyond all of this, my dad taught me some lessons that have helped shape who I am.  Here are just three of the most important.

Lesson 1-My Dad taught me how to fall in love with words

Ray Bradbury said in his book The Martian Chronicles: “Science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle.”

From a very early age, I remember both my parents having stacks of books next to their bed.  My mom seemed to devour a book each a night, and after my dad’s eyesight began to go, he received a special tape player from the library for the blind. It looked like my walkman and played all of his favorite books on tape.  He constantly listened to books and his running list as of a week ago was probably in the thousands.  I still remember being up in Yellowstone with my grandparents and seeing my grandpa sew a scrap of leather into pocket for my dad’s tape player.  My dad could thread his belt through and his player could literally be attached to his hip. 

My dad had many favorites.  He was the only person I knew whose favorite book was Les Miserable by Victor Hugo- the unabridged version.  He listened to it many times.  One author however stood out as his favorite.  He loved the works of Ray Bradbury.  He loved the poetic language Bradbury skillfully wove together into stories about traveling to Mars.  I soon fell in love with language and poetry too.  When I read something beautiful, I got trapped in the words and phrases, reading them over and over again, and savoring them like a piece of dark chocolate.  My dad was a quiet man but he would light up like a candle when we talked about Ray Bradbury.  My dad helped me truly fall in love with words.

Lesson 2-My dad taught me to work hard

Ray Bradbury said in his book Something Wicked this way Comes, “Too late, I found you can't wait to become perfect, you got to go out and fall down and get up with everybody else.”

Anyone who knew my dad, knew he was a very smart man.  School came easy for him and he was very good at what he did.  However, he taught me that working hard was valued far above any good grade that I got. 

I’ve always struggled with math; any type, whether it be algebra or geometry or even my basic math facts as a little girl.  Numbers felt so foreign compared to the words I loved, but to my dad, numbers were a second language. When I needed help on my math, we sat at the kitchen table, my dad’s diet coke and scratch paper at hand, and we would work through everything together.  I hated that math only had one right answer.  But my dad encouraged me to keep working hard towards that one answer.

Though my dad had health challenges he never let them slow him down.  He kept going to his job day after day and he did his job well.  He never gave up.

In 2003 my dad unexpectedly had a stroke that only affected the speech center of his brain.  He sat up in bed and could spout off all the technical terms about what happened to his brain, yet, he couldn’t remember simple words like lamp, chair, or bed.

During the following months, I had the honor of accompanying my dad to speech therapy where we worked on building up those parts of his brain again.  He had homework every night with loads of pictures to label.  It was an odd feeling to be sitting at the same kitchen table helping him with his homework this time around, but again, my dad never gave up.  I’ve applied his example in my life, over and over again.  And, each day, I strive to work hard at what matters most.

Lesson 3-My dad taught me that I matter

Ray Bradbury said in his book Dandelion Wine, “No person ever died that had a family.”

In 2011, Evelyn, our first little girl was born.  Labor had been difficult for me without an epidural and I felt so out of my element, being a first time mom.  When my family came just minutes after Evie was born, everyone crowded around the new baby at the warming table.  My dad, without a hesitation, walked straight to my bedside and asked if I was doing ok.  He cared.  He taught me that I matter. 

Many times in my life my dad has helped me see that I matter. At my wedding, he told everyone how proud he was of me. He sacrificed time and energy helping me with school. He was patient and supported me through my worries and challenges. Just weeks ago, he called to see how I was doing, offering his listening ear.  Being a young mom has pushed me to my limits often, but he has always defended me, loved me, and listened to me when things got hard.

I believe that even now, my dad still defends me, loves me, and listens to me. President Joseph F. Smith said,

“I believe we move and have our being in the presence of heavenly messengers and of heavenly beings. We are not separate from them. … We are closely related to our kindred, to our ancestors … who have preceded us into the spirit world. We can not forget them; we do not cease to love them; we always hold them in our hearts, in memory, and thus we are associated and united to them by ties that we can not break. … If this is the case with us in our finite condition, surrounded by our mortal weaknesses, … how much more certain it is … to believe that those who have been faithful, who have gone beyond … can see us better than we can see them; that they know us better than we know them. … We live in their presence, they see us, they are solicitous for our welfare, they love us now more than ever. For now they see the dangers that beset us; … their love for us and their desire for our well being must be greater than that which we feel for ourselves.”

I have a firm testimony of my savior Jesus Christ.  He loved us and gave His life for each of us.  He died, but (as my Evie would say), “he got his body back!”  My dad will get his body back too someday.  It will be perfected. The resurrection is real.  And the love I have for my dad will continue to grow as it always has.